Culture and Review

Marriage. What’s it all about, then? In a sermon marking the wedding of two established friends of Ekklesia, Simon Barrow looks at the spiritual and social embeddedness which means that, in Bonhoeffer's words, “It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”

A unique and ambitious web-based theological resource has been launched in Geneva by the World Council of Churches and Globethics.net. It aims to redress a global imbalance of access to research materials in theology and related disciplines.

The issue about creationism in schools is part of a wider set of misleadingly contructed arguments about religion and science, says Bob Carling. But ‘culture wars’ are often played out often by ignoring (or unfairly vilifying) those who take seriously the religious aspects of being human (and thus are theistic or agnostic) and who on the other hand take seriously the scientific evidence for evolution.

Dr Kamal Salibi, a renowned academic and historian, died suddenly in Beirut this week. Harry Hagopian reflects on his significance not just for his home country, but for the Arab world as a whole and for all concerned for the social, intellectual, religious and political culture of the Middle East.

Why it is that so few ‘secular’ scholars engage meaningfully with ‘religion’, wonders Michael Marten. Or to put it another way: why is it that so many religion scholars depend upon and practice disciplinary heterogeneity, whereas many of the scholars they use do not appear to engage substantially with what they write?

Two top performers coming to Edinburgh are convinced that music can play a significant role in awakening the human spirit and bringing a longing for harmony and peace in a troubled world, writes Mary Anson.

Moving beyond tolerance of differences to appreciation is both the aim and the outcome of a 2011 summer course on 'Building an interfaith community' at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland. Theodore Gill of the World Council of Churches explains the background.

The Festival of Spirituality and Peace, which runs this year in Edinburgh from 6 - 29 August 2011, seeks to reawaken the heart of the Edinburgh festival for people who, ten years after 9/11, want to work together for a peaceful future. The director, Donald Reid, introduces its main theme.